Playing For Pride

22 April 2016

Jim Bentley: "We are playing for pride''

SHRIMPS' boss Jim Bentley says his side are playing for pride when they meet Stevenage at the Globe Arena on Saturday.

With the sides sitting 20th and 21st respectively in League 2, both have had seasons to forget but the Shrimps have an extra reason to get a result this weekend after their shock 7-0 defeat at Cambridge on Tuesday.

Bentley said: “We want to finish as high as possible and there’s pride on the line.

“We want to finish above Stevenage and this is an ideal opportunity for us at home to win and put us in a better position to finish above them and maybe claw one or two others back.”

He added: “I believe the league is stronger this year and clubs like ourselves and Stevenage have found that because we’re at the wrong end of the table.

“Every game’s difficult. You’ve got to give it your all just to get a point.

“We’ll expect no different from Stevenage. They’ve got that pressure off now because they’ve just got themselves mathematically safe.

“We had a decent game down there but if there was a game this season that highlighted what our problem was going to be it was Stevenage away.

“We got beat 4-3 and I think Barry Roche saved two penalties on the day.”

Looking back to Tuesday's horror show he said: “In life and in football you can’t dwell, you can’t look back.

“You can’t affect the past, you can only affect the future and we’ve got to put all our energies into trying to win Saturday’s match in front of our home fans.

“It was a disappointing night for us but you’ve got to move on.

“We’ve got to pick the lads up, they’re a strong group anyway. They’ve got some decent character and some experienced lads in there who weren’t on the pitch on Tuesday.

“They’ll definitely come back into the reckoning on Saturday.

“Between the staff and those experienced lads it’s down to us to get around the group, gee everyone up and have a positive couple of days leading into the game on Saturday.

“The players have got to respond in the right manner for themselves as a group but those (46) fans who travelled all that way to see such a terrible defeat we’ve got to give them some payback.

“It’ll be nice to if we can give them something to cheer about on Saturday.”